Beneath the Mask
by ChunkyLover584
Summary: Naruto accidently activates a forgotten law at a young age and finds himself inducted into Konoha's ANBU division, but how will he deal with the reality of his new life? Naru/Anko/Hana/Kurenai. M for violence and possible lemons.


A/N: As per the results of the poll on my author page, here is the first chapter of my next story. Like all of my work, it will be a powerful Naruto involved in a very quickly developing relationship, in this case, a small harem with Anko, Kurenai and Hana. If you do not like this style, this is not the story for you, if you do, I hope you enjoy it.

Beneath the Mask

There is a little known rule within the Village Hidden in the Leaves. It is not widely known for two simple reasons. Firstly, it had not been utilised successfully in more than 25 years. And secondly, it was in the interest of the people who knew of it, to keep it to themselves. What is this law you might ask? Well, it was a stipulation that was written into the founding doctrine of one of Konoha's most elite branches, the ANBU black ops division.

The rule is simple, should, at any time, an ANBU's mask be stolen by any citizen of the village, that person is automatically given the chance to enter into the ranks of the masked elite. Now, since no one had successfully stolen one of the masks in more than a quarter of a century, the only people who still knew of the rule, are the village's oldest veterans, like the Hokage and his advisers, who didn't spread the rule to prevent needless attacks on their forces, and the ANBU themselves, who had no desire to be attacked more so than they already were.

It was, therefore, not surprising that when an eight year old orphan by the name of Uzumaki Naruto, stole the masks of an entire squad, he had absolutely no idea what he was getting himself into.

* * *

It had started as a simple retaliatory prank to get back at some masked ninja that had beaten him up a few weeks ago. It was far from the first time this group had attacked him, so he had long since memorized the designs on their porcelain masks. From there, it was not particularly difficult for him to implement his plan.

All he had had to do, was go to the Hokage's office and wait for the right team to show up. The Sandaime was one of the few people in the village that were ever kind to the boy, so no one thought anything of him playing quietly in the corner of the large office. When the squad he had been waiting for finally showed up, he made some excuse and left.

Using the skills he had picked up as the village pariah, it was not difficult for him to avoid detection as he waited for his targets to emerge. It was however, quite difficult for him to keep up with the four masked ninja as they bounded across the rooftops of Konoha towards their 'secret' headquarters.

Once they had arrived, breaking in had proven surprisingly easy, as the non descript building that housed the village elite, had ducted air-conditioning, with vents easily large enough for the rather stunted child to fit through. From there it was only a matter of finding the correct room and waiting for the men to disrobe and head towards the showers he had passed earlier.

The blonde child was sorely tempted to let out a loud burst of maniacal laughter, but settled for a victorious smirk as he stuffed the masks and uniforms of the men into his bag, replacing them with brightly coloured clown suits and matching masks.

His smirk died however, when he realised that he couldn't reach the vent that he had entered through, and thus had no exit. His look changed to one of terror when he heard the loud voices of the men approaching from down the hallway.

Whilst inwardly scalding himself for making such a stupid mistake, Naruto began frantically looking for a place to hide, but after a few moments, it became apparent that in the sparsely furnished locker room, such a thing simply did not exist.

Taking a deep breath, the young child steeled himself, if he could not hide then he would have to escape, the question then turned to, how he was going to accomplish such a feat. It was obvious he could not outrun the men, his past experiences with them was enough to teach him that. This meant that he would have to get a head start. That wouldn't be an issue since the men were returning from the showers and he doubted they would chase him wearing only towels, they would have to get dressed before they set off. The issue then was, how the hell he was supposed to get passed them in the first place. He may be tough for an eight year old, but there is no way he could fight his way through one of the village's elite, let alone four of them, which meant he would have to take a more subtle approach. Looking down into his bag, stuffed full of ANBU uniforms, he shrugged, it was worth a shot.

His opinion regarding the success of his disguise slipped greatly when he pulled on the pants, which went passed his feet, and the shirt, which was more like a dress, coming to halfway down his shins. Deciding that the sheer ridiculousness of his appearance might be enough to shock them so he could get through, he completed the outfit, attaching the armor and placing one of the masks on his face. He was shocked when his body was covered in a plume of smoke as soon as he secured the porcelain mask.

When the smoke finally cleared, he looked down to find that his scrawny eight year old body had been replaced, by that of a fully grown and rather muscular, adult. Unable to believe his eyes, he staggered over to a mirror, only to find that he did not recognise the person staring back at him. Everything that could have been used to identify him was completely changed or covered, not just his childish stature and build, but even his hair and eye colour had changed. Where there was once a scruffy mop of sunshine blonde hair, was now a long, black mane of silky locks. And where his shining sapphire blue orbs once sat, now resided eerily dull green eyes that seemed to convey none of the hysterical shock or disbelief that was currently coursing through his new body.

Naruto was snapped out of his stupor when the towel clad ANBU squad entered the room, he glanced at them when they suddenly stopped talking, but forced himself to look away immediately lest they recognize the mask he was wearing.

"Who are you?" a voice Naruto assumed belonged to the squad's captain demanded.

"Uh, I'm part of the team taking up your patrol." He stated, somehow not surprised that his voice sounded completely different.

"Then what are you doing in here? Shouldn't you be out with your squad?" the same man asked.

"Yeah, but I slept in, had a late night at the bar yesterday." Naruto replied, inwardly patting himself on the back for his improving deception skills.

"Well then hurry up. If commander Hatake finds out about this, he'll chew your ass out. You know how strict he is about punctuality."

The disguised boy nodded and began to hurry out of the room, eager to get as far away as possible before they noticed their missing uniforms.

He was immediately thankful that whoever designed the building kept it simple, as he was able to locate the exit before he heard a chorus of enraged screams from the locker room. Doing nothing to stifle his laughter, he bounded out of the building and began to make his way through the midday crowds of the business district.

* * *

Unfortunately for Naruto, he forgot to take several things into account when he was developing his improvised escape plan. First, ANBU members never traveled alone, and they almost never walked through the crowds, preferring to stick to the rooftops, this, almost immediately, gave him away to not only the disturbing amount of jounin that seemed to be present in that particular crowd, but also the enraged ANBU squad, that had caught up to him far quicker than he had anticipated. The reason for this was the second thing that Naruto forgot in his plan, all ninja, even fresh gennin, possessed a technique called the henge no jutsu, which let them alter their appearance in any way they want, say, by making it look like they were wearing their full ANBU uniforms when they were actually only wearing a towel.

So it was that, barely a minute after leaving the secret ANBU headquarters, that he was violently detained and bound. Luckily, for Naruto at least, the Sandaime had noticed the commotion and was watching from his office when they removed the mask from the boy, he was therefore, able to step in before the rabid squad leader was able to fulfill his screamed threat and "rip the demon's head off".

"I want all of you in my office, now." The Hokage commanded, his voice overflowing with barely restrained rage and power, despite the low volume at which he spoke.

"Hai Hokage-sama." The ANBU declared in unison, though their tones ranged from open terror to lightly concealed anger. They then vanished in a swirl of leaves, leaving the Hokage, the large crowd of onlookers and the bound and frightened child.

"This matter has been settled, continue about your business." Sarutobi declared as he picked Naruto up and vanished in his own swirl of leaves.

* * *

The ANBU members flinched despite their training when the Hokage appeared in his office, flooding the room with enough killer intent to make even them tremble.

"Tenzo!" the old man shouted, immediately summoning another ANBU who bowed before him.

"Hai Hokage-sama?"

"Fetch Commander Hatake, there is a matter that needs to be brought to his attention."

"Hai Hokage-sama." The kneeling man replied before leaving as suddenly as he had come.

It was barely a minute later that a tall, silver haired man appeared in a puff of smoke. "You called Sarutobi-sama?" Kakashi asked as he looked around the room. A new torrent of killer intent exploded as the masked man laid eyes on the bruised and restrained form of the Kyuubi jinchuruki and the squad of his men that were apparently responsible for his condition.

"Yes Kakashi, it appears as though Naruto broke into the ANBU headquarters and managed to steal the uniforms of this entire squad." The lanky man's visible eye opened in shock as he looked down at the child, only now noticing the clothes and armor that he was wearing.

"Did he-"

"I'm afraid so, all four of them in fact." The Hokage interrupted, getting a nod from the younger man.

"I see. Are you going to enact the law?"

"We don't have a choice Tobirama-sensei put it into the ANBU charter."

"Bu-"

"I hate to interrupt, but do you think YOU COULD UNTIE ME AND TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" Naruto yelled, getting sheepish looks from the Hokage and head of ANBU, both of whom had forgotten to release the boy from his uncomfortable restraints.

"Uh, right, sorry Naruto." Sarutobi said as he nodded to Kakashi, who pulled out a kunai and cut off the boy's restraints.

"Oh that's better." The boy declared as he sat up, rubbing his sore wrists.

"Naruto, where did you get that uniform?" Kakashi asked, getting a somewhat frightened look from the boy.

"Don't worry, you're not in trouble, we just want to know how you did it. Those uniforms are very special and if someone who was an enemy to our village got one, they could hurt a lot of people." Sarutobi explained, smiling when he received an understanding nod from the boy.

"Well, after I left your office, I waited for them to come out and then I followed them to their house. When I got there I saw that the roof had one of those fan-thingy's so I climbed down the tube until I got to the locker room. Once they went for their shower, I came down and grabbed the clothes, but then I couldn't get back to the hole, so I put the clothes on and when I put the mask on there was a big puff of smoke and I turned into a big guy!" Naruto declared excitedly, drawing a small chuckle from the two men. "And then they came in and I told them some story and they let me pass, so I ran off. But I didn't get very far before they came and they were gonna beat me up again, but then Jiisan came and stopped them and brought me here."

"What do you mean, again?" Kakashi asked, his eye narrowing dangerously.

"Those guys are meanies! They hurt me lots of times!" the boy declared, pointing at the terrified ANBU, who knew all too well how much both the Hokage and ANBU Commander cared for the demon child.

"Is that so? Well don't worry, Naruto, they won't be hurting you ever again." The silver haired man declared, glaring at the kneeling men.

"Now Naruto, there is something you need to know." Sarutobi said seriously, making sure the boy was paying attention. "Do you know what ANBU is?"

Naruto shook his head.

"Well, you know what a ninja is?" the little boy nodded excitedly.

"They're those cool guys that get to protect everybody from the bad people."

"Close enough. Well, ANBU are a special type of ninja, they're the strongest ninja in the village and they do special missions that no one else can do."

"Wow…but, what does this have to do with me?" the boy asked, confusedly.

"Well Naruto, there is a very old rule within ANBU, that says that if anyone from Konoha can take one of their masks, that person is allowed to join the ANBU." Kakashi explained smiling at the boy's excited expression.

"So I can be a really strong ninja and protect everybody?"

"Yes, but I need you to think very hard about this. If you say yes, you will have to be pulled out of the academy and go through very hard training to make sure you are as strong as possible, and then you will have to do very dangerous missions where you might end up getting hurt or even killed." The Hokage warned, concerned for the boy's safety and not really comfortable with the idea of him being an ANBU at such a young age.

Naruto took a deep breath and stared unwaveringly into the powerful old man's eyes. "I will do this Jii-san. No one at the academy likes me and they never teach me anything, so there is no point in me continuing to go there. And I need to get stronger if I want to get my dream."

"What dream is that Naruto?" Kakashi asked, impressed by the boy's seriousness.

"I want to be strong enough to have a family."

"What?" Sarutobi asked, not understanding.

"I'm not stupid Jiisan. I know that everybody in this village hates me. And for the most part I don't care, if they don't like me that's their problem. But I know what happens to the people who are nice to me."

"What do you mean Naruto?"

"One time I was at the park and this girl with funny white eyes came up and actually played with me. But then after a little while, a man with the same weird eyes came and yelled at her and took her away. Then there was that old man that gave me yummy ramen, and then, the next day, his shop got burned down. And then-"

"We get the point Naruto. You want to be strong enough to be able to have friends or family and not have to worry about them getting hurt or in trouble because of you." Sarutobi interrupted, getting a determined nod from the boy.

"I don't care how hard it is or what I have to do, I will be strong enough to have a family." The little blonde declared, his voice filled with more determination and conviction than the elderly Hokage had heard from any man.

Sarutobi nodded and looked to Kakashi, who returned the gesture. "Okay Naruto, effective immediately, you are no longer enrolled in the Konoha Academy and starting tomorrow, you will be undertaking special training to get you to the ANBU level as quickly as possible. Kakashi here is the head of ANBU, so from now on, he's your boss and you have to do everything he says, okay?" Naruto nodded and gave a slight bow to both men.

"First of all Naruto, you cannot tell anyone about where you are going or anything that we do, if people knew what you were doing it might cause all of us some trouble. For now though, you are dismissed, but I want you to come to the building you stole the uniforms from at 6 o'clock tomorrow morning, understood?" Kakashi ordered in his commander voice.

"Hai Kakashi-sama, I will be there." Naruto declared, standing at attention and giving a salute before he left, causing both Sarutobi and Kakashi to chuckle. After a few moments their laughter died however, and they turned to the four ANBU members still kneeling behind them.

"Now as for you four…"

* * *

It was 5:30 the following morning when Naruto found himself skulking through the streets of his home village. He was more than aware that the fact that there was very few villagers around was no reason to let down his guard, all the near empty streets meant was less witnesses for anyone who wanted to hurt him.

He was thankful when he finally made it to his destination, still 15 minutes earlier than he was expected, but he had remembered what the ANBU team had told him about Kakashi being strict on punctuation and was determined to not upset his new boss.

He knocked on the door and after only a minute was being ushered in by an average looking civilian, who turned out to be an ANBU under henge as he dropped it as soon as the door was closed.

"Uh, hi. I'm here to see Kakashi-sama." Naruto explained to the stoic looking figure. His response was only a slight nod and being pointed down a particular hallway.

"Thanks." He muttered as he walked away following the corridor until he found himself in front of a door. Assuming it must be the right one, Naruto knocked lightly.

"Come in." replied a familiar voice, resulting in the small boy letting out a relieved sigh, he didn't really like dealing with the creepy silent guys.

"Oh Naruto, you're early, that's good. I hope you are ready because we will be starting straight away." Kakashi declared as he stared into Naruto's excited and slightly apprehensive eyes.

* * *

Naruto knew that whatever Kakashi had planned for training was going to be tough, but he had no idea just how hard the grueling regime would be. For the next year his entire life was built around improving himself, every day he pushed his body, mind and soul to their very limits and it didn't take long for the results to begin to show.

Contrary to what it stated in his records from his brief stint at the academy, Naruto was not stupid, in fact, he was far from it. The boy was a sponge for absolutely anything ninja related, whether it be advanced taijutsu, strategic analysis of historic battles or even the complexities of fuuinjutsu, nothing was beyond the boy if he was given a chance. But there was one area that dwarfed all his other impressive skills, ninjutsu.

It was simply astonishing the amount of talent he had. Whereas most ninja would simply learn a technique, Naruto would train with it until it was completely mastered, then he would break it down and find some way of improving or modifying it to make it more useful. In his relatively short time in training he had already done this with more than one hundred techniques, including Kakashi's own original jutsu the Raikiri.

It had gotten to the point that many of the boy's trainers were eager to teach him their jutsu so that he could improve on it then teach his version to them, which he was more than happy to do as it meant that he had a practically limitless supply of new techniques to learn and experiment with.

At first, many had been astonished by the boy's rapid growth, some even going so far as to say that the demon must be helping him, but after a month or so, when he was taught one particular technique, his development had exploded.

* * *

He had been watching Neko, his kenjutsu trainer, spar with her boyfriend, when the man had used a clone technique that Naruto had never seen before. Like many of the other clone techniques, it created a solid clone, which in itself was not particularly interesting, but then the clone had used a jutsu and Naruto nearly wet himself. To someone like him, who was quickly becoming a ninjutsu specialist, the idea of being able to launch more than one technique at a time opened up a whole new world of possibilities, he had to learn that technique.

It had taken nearly an hour of near constant bugging, but finally the sickly looking man relented and taught the 8 year old a jounin level kenjutsu, the Kage Bunshin. He had no idea how his actions would change the very world they lived in.

* * *

It had only taken Naruto 15 minutes to learn the technique with the man instructing him, and only half an hour after that for the boy to figure out the secret advantage that put the Kage Bunshin even further ahead of every other clone technique ever devised, they could think. Which meant they could learn. And everything they learnt was transferred back to the original when they dispelled. If Naruto had been old enough, he may very well have cum when he realised the implications this had on his training.

From that day forward, there was no longer just Naruto being trained in one thing at a time, there were hundreds of Narutos, learning absolutely everything they could get their hands on.

Kakashi had been reluctant to allow such extreme training for the boy, but after seeing the results that quickly became apparent, he found himself unable to argue against it.

And so Naruto had grown, he was already estimated at gennin level after the first month, before learning the Kage Bunshin, two months after that there would be very few chuunin that could touch him, five months later he was evaluated as on par with 80 percent of Konoha's jounin and by the time his first year was over, there were very few in the ANBU division that could hold their own against the child.

Despite this, there was one thing that held the boy back, experience. And so, after almost a year to the day, Naruto Uzumaki was finally getting his first mission. He had been given his own uniform and mask the previous day, and he could still scarcely believe that it was real. They had allowed him to choose his own design and Kakashi almost died when he asked for a fox mask, but the silver haired man had relented when he explained that no one would expect the Kyuubi's jinchuruki to hide behind such an obvious mask, therefore making it the perfect one for him to use, hiding in plain sight, as the old saying goes.

Naruto could still vividly remember the day that he figured out exactly what was contained in the intricate spiral shaped seal on his abdomen. He was not generally an overly emotional person, having long ago learnt that someone in his position was far better off feeling nothing than the hurt and loneliness that came from his isolation, but having finally found out the reason for why he was hated and abused for essentially his entire life, he couldn't help but feel a deep hatred burning within him.

Not only was he hated for something that was completely out of his control, but if the moronic bigots thought about it for half a second they would realise that he had been protecting them literally all of his life.

Shaking his head to clear it of those unhelpful thoughts, Naruto focused back on his situation.

The Sandaime had purposefully chosen this mission for the blonde's first for a number of reasons, but mainly it was because it was a pure combat mission and therefore he would not be too held back by his lack of experience. It was also about as simple as ANBU missions ever got.

A squad consisting of a few chuunin had been sent out on a standard search and retrieval assignment, but apparently things had gotten complicated and now they were calling for reinforcements. Naruto's squad had a simple task, eliminate the threat and escort the chuunin squad back to Konoha. If only they knew what an impact this "simple" mission would have on all of their lives.

Chapter End

A/N: For the record, I am aware that this is well below my usual standard, but for some reason I am finding this story really hard to write and it shows in the quality. I will continue this if there is enough demand, but if there isn't, I'm going to try doing the first chapter of the fic that came second in the poll and see if that is any easier. Let me know what you think and if I should bother continuing.

Mr Chunk


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